App of the Week: MightyTV finds the next show you’ll fall in love with

Finding your next favorite TV show can be a challenge. Sure, Netflix, Hulu and Amazon all have built-in recommendation engines, but you’ll often just see the same shows suggested over and over again.

Plus, you can’t inform one service that you already watched the show on another another service and it was or wasn’t your thing. Sure, you could rate the show, but that’s often not an easy task if you’re using a game console or streaming media player, thanks to limited controls and basic UI for TV-based portals.

A new app called MightyTV wants to solve that problem, and it adds a super-smart social element to the mix too.

For many people, their relationship with their favorite TV shows and movies is almost as important as relationships with other people, so MightyTV took the Tinder approach to finding out your interests.

You swipe right or left to tell the app if you like or dislike the title, and you can even “Love” the title by holding to the right. If there’s a title you haven’t seen but thinks looks interesting, you can add it to your list with a tap, or skip it for now with an upward swipe. MightyTV also includes short synopses and the trailers, if you want to know a little bit more about a movie before adding it to your list.

While the app surfaced some great movies and TV shows for me, the real power comes when you add a friend to the mix. If you’ve both swiped through a few dozen choices, you can “mashup” you two recommendation profiles to get some suggested options. So no more scrolling through Netflix trying to find something to agree on.

The only disappointment in MightyTV is that adding movies to your watchlist doesn’t actually add them to your queue on the streaming network. Because each streaming platform is pretty closed off, you’ll have to go searching for the recommended titles yourself.

However, MightyTV does the best it can with the options available today. Users can tell the app which platforms they subscribe to (right now, MightyTV supports Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Video Showtime and HBO Now), and they can note whether they’re looking to buy or rent titles. This helps the app decide which options to display, because there’s nothing worse than finding a great movie or show only to learn that you don’t pay for that streaming platform.

The MightyTV app is free, but only available on iOS right now. If it’s time to fall in love with a new TV show, this is the app to find it for you.

App of the Week is a regular feature of the GeekWire radio show and podcast, airing at 7 p.m. Saturdays and 1 p.m. Sundays on KIRO Radio (97.3 FM) in the Seattle region, except when pre-empted by live sports. The show runs every weekend on GeekWire.com. Get every episode using this RSS feed, or subscribe in iTunes, SoundCloud and Stitcher. Note: GeekWire may receive a share of the revenue from your purchase of apps or content through affiliate partnerships.

James Risley is a technology writer living in Seattle. He’s written for the Medill News Service and helped build small, news-focused web tools for covering transportation and politics. You can follow James on Twitter or Instagram and reach him at james@geekwire.com.